Slackers, Fools, Robbers and Thieves: Fairy Tales and the Folk Imagination by Dariya Prykhodko M.A.(Russian Language and Literature), University of Franko, Ukraine, 1998 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dariya Prykhodko 2014 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2014 Approval Name: Dariya Prykhodko Degree: Master of Arts Title: Slackers, Fools, Robbers and Thieves: Fairy Tales and the Folk Imagination Supervisory Committee: Chair: Eleanor Stebner Associate Professor J.S. Woodsworth Chair, Humanities June Sturrock Senior Supervisor Professor Emerita, English Jerry Zaslove Supervisor Professor Emeritus, English Michael Kenny External Examiner Professor Emeritus, Anthropology SFU Date Defended/Approved: March 19, 2014 ii Partial Copyright Licence iii Abstract As has been noted by many linguists and folklorists, folklore - like language - has a naturally collective ownership,f and thus, it is subject to strict uniform laws: only those features that do not fail to hold attraction to their audience survive throughout time and changing life circumstances. I look at several conventionally negative types of the folktale hero, such as the Fool, the Slacker, the Trickster, the Robber and the Thief, which – nevertheless – hold a steady popularity in folklore, as can be seen in the two best-known Russian and German folktale collections. I attempt to investigate various psychological, cultural and historical causes that may have produced these types and contributed to their seemingly irrational appeal to the audience. Another cultural question that interests students of the folktale is whether there is a national mentality that can be traced via folklore. It appears that folklore has been used to determine and reinforce national ideals and specific features of collective values. I examine the connection among all three - the form a text takes, its contents and its functions in a social group, and trace some Russian peculiarities in treatment of these amoral, immoral and criminal types in comparison with the German folktale. Keywords: Folklore; morality; Fool; Slacker; Trickster; Thief and Robber iv Acknowledgements I am very grateful to my supervisors June Sturrock and Jerry Zaslove for all their time and an enormous amount of help and support they offered me during this project. v Table of Contents Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Partial Copyright Licence ............................................................................................... iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... vi Foreword .................................................................................................................. 1 Overview of the Method ............................................................................................... 2 The Folk and Fairy Tale: Introduction to Several Traditional Approaches ............... 6 Chapter 1. The Slacker and the Fool .......................................................................... 21 Chapter 2. The Robber ................................................................................................ 44 Chapter 3. The Noble Outlaw and the Regular Thief ................................................ 62 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 81 References ................................................................................................................... 82 vi Foreword When I originally started this project, I had a very different idea in mind. I was going to look at three different types of narratives -- namely folk tales, poetry and mystery fiction -- and examine the ethical functions they may perform intentionally and an influential power they may possess inadvertently. However, the very first part of my project – a comparison of Russian and German folk and fairy tales – proved to be such a fascinating field, with such an abundance of new-to-me-information that I finally dedicated the whole project exclusively to fairy tales. I have looked at several conventionally negative, yet steadily popular characters of the folktale hero, and attempted to investigate various causes that may have produced these types and contributed to their seemingly irrational appeal to the audience. What puzzled me most was an apparent satisfaction people derive from learning about particular negative behaviours. Closely reading Russian and German fairy tales in their immediate historico-cultural context, I examined the tales through the prism of people’s needs and hopes. I have discovered a lot of unexpected turns in this wonder-journey, and am glad to share my findings with you. 1 Overview of the Method Linguists and folklorists suggest that folklore – like language – has a structure owned collectively, and is subject to strict uniform laws and conventions: only those features that succeed in attracting and interesting their audience survive throughout time and changing life circumstances.1 In this project, I investigate the branch of folklore known as the fairy tale, with an occasional reference to the folk tale. Although there are many contradicting definitions for these two types of folklore narratives, I will simply define them as follows: tales that have been created by folk imagination over centuries, and have survived to our day. The fairy tale is different from the folk tale in its extensive reliance on the magic elements that play a key role in the hero’s adventures. For this project, I will be using “fairy tale” as a generic term, although it is not exactly accurate to use it in the context of Russian tales: there are no fairies in Russian tales. Such tales are called “magic tales” or “wonder tales” in Russia. One of my central concerns in this project was to explore the folk imagination through fairy tales. I am particularly interested in some features of the folk imagination not so easily explained by common sense: a suspect folk attraction to particular non- virtuous personages. I look at several conventionally negative types of the folk and fairy tale heroes, such as the Fool, the Slacker, the Trickster, the Robber and the Thief, which nevertheless hold a steady popularity in folklore, as it can be seen via the two best- known Russian and German folk tale collections that I am using for this project: Russian Folk Tales by Alexander Afanasiev and Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old. Both these fairy tale collections - approximately 200 tales of the Grimm Brothers, and almost 600 1 Jakobson 640-641, Propp, Afanasiev, Hartland, Bettelheim. 2 tales, containing variants, of Afanasiev - are representative of their homelands;2 both were compiled in the nineteenth century, although the Grimms’ collection is an earlier one, and had been compiled and published several times (1814-1857)3 before the Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasiev took on a similar endeavor himself between 1855 and 1863.4 To limit my project to a reasonable size, I had to choose and examine only few types of fairy tale wrong-doers, though of course there is no limit to folk imagination. The Fool, the Slacker, the Trickster, the Robber and the Thief interest me most because all of them – to different degrees and depending on the tale – represent purely human vices, and this is what I find the most interesting from a psychological point of view: why would they attract such loving attention from people? Evil monsters and witches, belonging to the “other world”, could be explained away as an outside danger that the protagonist manages to shun - this gives the audience an adrenalin rush. But what satisfactions do we find in listening and reading about human wrong-doers? Carefully reading the fairy tales themselves, I have made 2 The Grimm Brothers are known to have recorded folk tales first-hand during their travels in Hesse and Westphalia, although some of the tales were taken by them from literary sources. (See Donald Haase “Literary Fairy Tales” for further information). Afanasiev’s collection, on the other hand, consists of several tales heard by him directly from storytellers and those tales passed on to him by the Russian Geographical Society and other collectors, such as Zhukovky and Dahl. (See Roman Jakobson “On Russian Fairy Tales” for further discussion on Afanasiev). Unfortunately, the places of the recording and the names of the storytellers are noted only partially in both collections. Despite some criticism for over-editing the authentic stories, both the Grimm Brothers and Afanasiev were dedicated to taking down the stories faithfully. 3 The first edition was published in 1814; the second edition in 1819- 1822; the third edition in 1837; the fourth edition in 1840; the fifth edition in 1843; the sixth edition in 1850; the seventh edition in 1857. 4 The first edition was published by Afanasiev between 1855 and 1863; the second edition in 1873, posthumously. 3 an attempt to investigate several psychological, cultural and historical causes that may have